5 Ways to You Can Market for Free

Hello Story Empire readers! Today is my first official post on this site and I’m really excited to share some thoughts with everyone. Here are five free ways to market your book in some ways you may not have thought about before now.

Blog About Your Book

Yes, this has been said many times by many people but here are a few ways to consider doing it – especially if you write fiction. I’ve written a few about my characters or the world of Denaria. However, you can a list about things in your book as points of interest. Think about all the different ways you can use lists about your fiction that may inform readers and potential readers about your book. As an example, I recently shared “5 Kinds of Trolls in Denaria (and Why They’re Dangerous!)“. It was a good exercise and I hope it better informs my following fiction readers about my work – especially as I work on releasing my next book in the series, An Arrow Against the Wind.

Another way to blog about your fiction that you may not have thought about is infographics. This handy visual tool is very effective to show something about your novel. In the case of fantasy writing, I can reveal details about my fantasy setting or characters in a way that intrigues without revealing too much about the story. My recent infographic about Spark from The Bow of Destiny got some interest. Want to make your own infographic but don’t know where to being? Try Canva! I used PowerPoint to make my infographic which is done by creating a slide and saving it as a .jpg.

Lastly, don’t be afraid to share more personal thoughts an ideas about your writing. This can include why you love your chosen genre or your memories of reading. It’s good to be real with your readers withing reason. I’m working on a few of these now for both my site and other locations – which leads to my next point:

Make Regular Blog Appearances

Should you do blog tours? Yes and all the more in the weeks and months after you release a book. However, you also need to make appearances on genre-friendly blogs. As you discover various bloggers, you are networking with your genre community and getting more exposure to a larger reading audience. But here’s a practical reason why it’s important: the more guest blog appearances you make, the more links around the web for you and your work there are.

Here are a couple of aspects to guest appearances you should consider when making them. First, save the links to all these blog posts so you can use them to post on social media for months or years afterward. Why? Well, it continues to draw attention to your work and it helps the blogger’s views – they’ll welcome you back for more guest appearances as you publish more books. Secondly, keep a list of bloggers with whom you’ve networked. This way, when you release more books you have a list of sites to engage in the weeks and months before and after your book release so you can build more links for the new book and get the word out.

Do an Internet Radio or Podcast Interview

Seek these out as much as you can. I’ve done a few in the past and I’ll call on these same shows around my next release. I’ll even look for more ways to make these appearances as I go. I’ve appeared on RRBC’s Rave Waves, Speculative Fiction Cantina and Tell Me a Story.

Once you’ve made these appearances they often appear in show archives and, like in the point above, you can save the links and post them on social media for all the same reasons. More exposure for your work is more exposure and the hosts will love you for sharing their show regularly.

Interact on Blogs Regularly with Comments, Posts and Shares

Why is this one important? As you leave comments you are interacting with the blog community. Also, your social media shares as well as reblogs and post presses (I refer specifically to WordPress here) share sites and broadens your links to other sites that get you more site visitors over time. Now I know writers are busy but I’m not saying leave lots of comments everyday or make tons of shares otherwise. However, be intentional to interact at least several times a week and the activity will do wonders for your site over time. Some sites, such as the speculative fiction blog, Mythic Scribes, allow you to link a title from your blog (share the love) into your comment so other readers have the opportunity to become familiar with your work.

Share Your Blog Appearances and Interviews Often

Referring to my points above, I cannot say enough about doing this. Keep that list of links and share them. The goodwill you build is important. Likewise, the regular exposure on other sites will keep your reader discovery going long after you’ve published your books. It’s how you can give back to a helpful blogger and receive as well. Links in as many places as possible around the web bring new visitors who can become new readers so build your web of links regularly!

That’s all I have today. Thanks for stopping by to read today! Please leave your thoughts and ideas in the comments section. I’d love to hear your free ways to market your writing! As I come up with more related links to this topic I’ll update here and repost this article or press the related articles.

About the author

I’m P. H. Solomon and I live in the greater Birmingham, AL area. I strongly dislike yard work and sanding the deck rail. However, I perform such duties to maintain a nice home for my loved ones as well as the family’s German Shepherds.

In my spare time, I ride herd as a Computer Whisperer on large computers called servers (harmonica not required). Additionally, I enjoy reading, running, most sports, and fantasy football. Having a degree in Anthropology, I also have a wide array of more “serious” interests in addition to working regularly to hone my writing.

Great inaugural post, PH. Great tips, too. I’m already doing much of what you’ve recommended, and I couldn’t agree more regarding their effectiveness. I especially like your points regarding infographics (the ones I’ve done have always been well received) and guest posts (both doing them and having a listing of them for sharing).